Best low phosphate food

[Drag80n Reef]

I want to feed my tank more to increase nitrates without increasing phos much. As much as I would like to add a new fish to my tank, Dory is too mean, has taken 2 lives and Ive endured many stab wounds to my hand . Looking for suggestions on food that are low in phos, thanks

 

[lapin]

Live worms. Black and white

 

[EnterName]

A little disclaimer at first: I don't think selecting food based on phosphate is the best option. The food needs to provide what your fishes need.

Randy has written a nice article back in 2012 in which the phosphorus content per gram of food is listed for a few products. Here are the ones with the lowest phosphorus content:

• Ocean Nutrition Frozen mysis - 0.1mg/g P
• San Francisco Brand Frozen Brine Shrimp - 0.72mg/g P
• Ocean Nutrition Frozen Prime Reef - 0.9mg/g P
• Ocean Nutrition Frozen Formula 1 - 1.1mg/g P
• Ocean Nutrition Frozen Formula 2 - 1.2mg/g P
• Direct Tahitian Blend Cryopaste - 1.4mg/g P

Of course you can also check how the food you currently use compares to the products in the article, as long as you can find the data somewhere.

 

[afboundguy]

Live worms. Black and white

This right here! White worms over black worms IMO/IME as the white worms "live" a lot longer on SW and move around on the sandbed where black worms basically die instantly.

White worms are super easy to culture and fish go crazy over them! When I used to feed them all the time I used to have a mandarin that would eat so many of them I would often see the worms sticking out of their gills lol!!!

 

[Drag80n Reef]

I gotta try this out, I’m interested in culturing white worms now

 

[Patx]

Here, to increase my NO3 I add more "new life spectrum"
my PO4 do not seem to be influenced by this addition.

 

[afboundguy]

I gotta try this out, I’m interested in culturing white worms now

You won't be disappointed!!!

 

[Stang67]

I gotta try this out, I’m interested in culturing white worms now

Ask @JoJosReef how he did his.

 

[JoJosReef]

I gotta try this out, I’m interested in culturing white worms now

Starter culture from "thewhitewormlady" (@Snoopdog ), a small wine fridge set to 65C, some sterilized soil, some yogurt + Baker's yeast + ______ , and you're off to the races. I use Tupperware that slide perfectly into my mini 6 bottle wine fridge. Punched pin-size holes in the lid for air.

For yogurt, I find Trader Joe's Eyropean style (red label) like a hyper growth food. I imagine any soupier yogurt would do, but they LOVE this stuff. For insert the blank part, most people use stale bread, but you can experiment with different contents for nutrition. I mixe a bit of freeze dried calanus into the yogurt (not too much or it'll become a brick). You are what you eat and all.

 

[afboundguy]

I gotta try this out, I’m interested in culturing white worms now

I just buy small food containers at grocery shop and use potting soil. I microwave it for 1-2 minutes to sanitize it and then add RODI to make it very wet but not total mud. I then mix in starter culture and I have been feeding wheat bread with plain yogurt on it sprinkled with yeast flakes with the yogurt/yeast side down.

I have used dry cat food in a pinch and I have heard coffee grounds make good food but I haven't tried that. I did find a container of coffee that I had purchased a while ago and forgot when I was cleaning up my basement!

They are also very resilient. I hurt my leg and stopped feeding them for months and it had been easily 6+ months since the last time I fed them and I still had 3 of the 4 cultures with viable WWs.

 

[kevgib67]

This right here! White worms over black worms IMO/IME as the white worms "live" a lot longer on SW and move around on the sandbed where black worms basically die instantly.

White worms are super easy to culture and fish go crazy over them! When I used to feed them all the time I used to have a mandarin that would eat so many of them I would often see the worms sticking out of their gills lol!!!

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[Drag80n Reef]

Thank you all for your input, this means a lot!

 

[Jungle Blue]

Thank you all for the tips. My AF4 is coming in today, but live cultures sound spicy. +1 Weekend project :)

 

[Snoopdog]

I am not sure how low phosphate they are, we do reef moonshiners and we do struggle to keep our nitrates and phosphates up, we do not run a skimmer. I hope our Mandarin takes to them, he is chunky but we have not actually see him eat white worms when we feed. My wife thinks he eats the babies, but maybe one day we will catch him in the act.

We are kind of hitting a peak right now and lowered prices and shipping is low because of the cold weather. We are solely on Ebay now, really got tired of Etsy removing the listings even though Etsy was much easier to sell from as a platform.